[HN Gopher] American chestnut tree in Centreville is the 'holy g...
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American chestnut tree in Centreville is the 'holy grail' for
conservationists
Author : greenonions
Score : 195 points
Date : 2022-08-27 18:10 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.delawareonline.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.delawareonline.com)
| dang wrote:
| The recent Stewart Brand documentary goes into American Chestnuts
| quite a bit.
|
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11741708/
| peteradio wrote:
| Is there a theory where this tree came from? Is it presumed
| blight resistant or just really lucky for its location? The old
| trees live on in the roots but the young shoots die off,
| presuming blight resistance, did it evolve asexually?
| BooneJS wrote:
| The Seek app by iNaturalist is one possible way for armchair
| conservationists to catalog the trees on their property.
| bentcorner wrote:
| This app is unexpectedly fun to use. My family uses it like
| PoGo but with native plants and animals.
| nickspacek wrote:
| I like Seek but find I prefer the more "raw", self-titled
| iNaturalist app itself.
| paulpauper wrote:
| How can they all die so fast and sudden? Wouldn't we expect a
| certain % to have some immunity, and then those genes pass on and
| the population eventually recovers?
| Maursault wrote:
| Maybe that might have happened, but panic due to the blight
| massively increased logging of healthy Chestnuts trees. It
| wasn't just the blight that caused the ecological disaster;
| greed and shortsightedness probably played an equal part as
| well.
| 2bitencryption wrote:
| If this interests you, I highly recommend the novel "Overstory",
| which was a pulitzer prize winner in the last few years.
|
| It's a fictional collection of stories, all linked by trees (it
| makes sense if you've read it).
|
| Beautifully written, and gave me a huge appreciation for trees.
| sarchertech wrote:
| Has anyone heard anything about the Darling 58 genetically
| modified American Chestnut that is resistant to the blight? Last
| I heard the USDA was reviewing it for approval to sell.
| altairprime wrote:
| For the record, if you discover a long-lost extinct species, wait
| until you've collected seeds _before_ you tell the world where
| you found it.
| goldenkey wrote:
| Does this also apply to animals? "collecting seeds" seems a bit
| of a subtle way to say what you are implying..
| helen___keller wrote:
| The article misstates
|
| > There used to be about 4 million American chestnut trees in
| eastern U.S. forests, until chestnut blight (Cryphonectria
| parasitica) arrived [...]
|
| The number is closer to 4 billion with a B[1]
|
| Their range was across eastern North America and I've read
| estimates that they may have been a quarter to a third of the
| trees in those forests before the blight arrived.
|
| 1 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_chestnut
| redtriumph wrote:
| For a moment, I was wondering why would American conservative
| movement fixate itself with a tree!!?? (I need to unplug from
| news cycle)
| culi wrote:
| Saw this really amazing video[0] the other day about American
| Chestnut Foundation's breeding program in Virginia to revive the
| American chestnut
|
| Basically they hybridized it with Chinese/Japanese chestnuts
| (which are blight resistant). Then they take the offspring, test
| for blight resistance and rebreed those back with purebred
| American chestnuts. Then they repeat the process. Take those
| offspring, select for blight resistance, rebreed with American
| species, etc
|
| After a few generations they created an American chestnut tree
| that looks almost exactly like the purebred versions but retains
| the blight resistance of the Japanese and Chinese species
|
| Really amazing work
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbrY-J0bpto
| dfc wrote:
| The chestnut project is from the Commonwealth of Virginia, not
| West Virginia.
| culi wrote:
| Woops, thanks for the correction
| nebul wrote:
| For anyone wanting to learn more about this breeding technique,
| it's called backcrossing[1]. It's also used for agricultural
| crops, but requires _many_ generations.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backcrossing
| tsol wrote:
| Simple, yet effective. I've heard it said modern fruits are
| relatively tasteless compared to their older counterparts
| because they are bred for size and hardiness. I wonder if
| these can be backcrossed as well to produce more flavorful
| fruits with similar sizes
| nebul wrote:
| The hard thing with taste is that it's usually the sum of
| many quantitative traits, each one being governed by
| several genes which can located on different chromosomes,
| as seen in tomato[1]. Transferring enough of them into the
| modern genome through backcross would probably require a
| crazy amount of generations... or a crazy amount of luck :)
|
| [1] https://doi.org/10.1093/jxb/erf058
| NegativeLatency wrote:
| I imagine soil quality and time of harvest also play a
| decent part in taste. All other factors being equal picking
| a green tomato isn't going to be as good as letting it
| ripen on the vine naturally.
| bitxbitxbitcoin wrote:
| If you ever see a cannabis strain name with a Bx in it, it
| stands for Backcross!
| bergenty wrote:
| I sent them an email asking them for seeds a few months ago,
| unfortunately they stopped giving them out.
| echelon wrote:
| Why don't they use agrobacterium transfection, gene guns, or
| molecular techniques to directly transfer the resistance genes
| over? Do we not know what the genes themselves are?
|
| I'm not criticizing their technique! Nor do I think I know
| better. This is amazing and valuable work, and I'd love to know
| more.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| Do we not know ....
| notsapiensatall wrote:
| I've been wondering the same things for the past decade. It
| seems like it's very hard to get your gene into the right
| place so that it will be expressed at the right time, with
| enough consistency to make a stable cell line.
|
| Also, it seems rare to find just one gene that encodes a
| property or compound. Usually you need several genes to form
| a pathway from a common precursor chemical to your target
| result. That pathway will be leaky, and it may take resources
| away from other important chemicals that the plant's
| lifecycle relies on.
|
| It sounds expensive and time consuming - plants take a long
| time to compile, and you can forget about reproducible
| builds. Plus, once you have your GMO, you'll be expected to
| take care not to release it into the wild, and in today's
| world, a decent chunk of people will oppose your product
| because of their personal beliefs.
| tsol wrote:
| Honestly there's probably a benefit to just avoiding more
| controversial tech like GMOs. There will be that much less
| resistance to re-introducing them back into the wild
| ch4s3 wrote:
| IIRC the breeding program predates those tools.
| space_fountain wrote:
| There is actually a parallel technique nearing the finish
| line that does sort of this. The gene they moved though is
| from wheat not another tree species, but still seems to give
| great blight resistance. Currently the barrier to it is
| entirely regularity. I believe it would be one of the first
| plants approved to just be released into the wild without
| something to prevent it reproducing naturally. The normal
| anti genetic engineering types are very opposed, but it seems
| likely it will get approved in the next few years.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/30/magazine/american-
| chestnu...
| JshWright wrote:
| A buddy of mine has been involved in this project for years
| at SUNY ESF, and it's very exciting how successful it has
| been. There are dozens of test sites around central New
| York that have healthy (albeit very young) populations of
| American Chestnuts.
| exmadscientist wrote:
| The things the gene gun can do turn out to be not the most
| useful things one could hope for from it. (It's a
| surprisingly brute-force device, though I guess that was all
| in the name if you actually took it at face value!) I don't
| see a ton of future for it as a generalist technology, though
| what things it does well it does _very_ well.
|
| CRISPR is... awful in different ways. (It seems to have a lot
| of trouble controlling how much material it transfers.) It's
| a laboratory curio or one-off stunt now, but I fully expect
| it will improve.
| systems_glitch wrote:
| Low-tech, non flash solution that delivers.
| culi wrote:
| Good question. I'd imagine something like blight resistance
| would probably not be a simple case of a few specific genes
| we can just switch over.
|
| It could also just be technology. This breeding program has
| been around for 50 years or so and CRISPR only really took
| off around 2011. In addition, the original CRISPR-Ca9 caused
| a lot of unintended changes in DNA and it's really critical
| that the new trees are morphologically equivalent to the
| original trees in order for the birds, insects, and animals
| that depended on them to resume their interactions. Newer
| technologies like CRISPR-Nickase are much more precise but
| also very recently developed
| JshWright wrote:
| It actually is pretty "simple" in this case (the tree needs
| to produce a single chemical, oxalate oxidase). There is a
| program that has done this very successfully, and it just
| working through the regulatory process before wider
| distribution can happen. They have thousands of trees in
| (controlled) forest plots, including three generations off
| offspring.
| at_a_remove wrote:
| If I recall, someone has jammed a wheat gene into a few of
| them in just that manner.
|
| It's a tricky business, because chestnut had very particular
| properties, as wood, that made it quite valuable, and any
| gene interference, well ... who knows how it will change the
| resultant wood?
| greenonions wrote:
| Saw that video recently as well. What's remarkable about this
| find is the size of the specimen, and that it's confirmed to be
| 100% American Chestnut. Hopefully with the hybrid approach,
| this find, and further breeding/propagation work, we can see a
| large scale return of this incredible species.
| lettergram wrote:
| Unfortunately, I can't buy them yet. Driving me nuts
| cpfohl wrote:
| You can buy the backcrosses, as far as I know...it's the
| modified ones from SUNY ESF that you can't buy yet.
| DeanStevenson wrote:
| > Driving me nuts
|
| I see what you did there.
| leetrout wrote:
| If this interests you and you want to keep exploring trees and
| forests check out Tom Wessels:
|
| https://youtu.be/zcLQz-oR6sw
| tootie wrote:
| This is amazing. My parents liked to tell me that roasted
| chestnuts used to be a ubiquitous street food in NYC until they
| disappeared.
| pivo wrote:
| We've still got 'em. They must come from other species of
| chestnut trees now.
| roflyear wrote:
| There is one in North Bergen, NJ. I won't say where. They can
| find it themselves!
| mod wrote:
| It's okay, it's very unlikely that it's not a hybrid.
| bardworx wrote:
| How would you know it's American Chestnut and not a sweet or
| Japanese variant?
| tylerrobinson wrote:
| If true, you should share it with the foundation that catalogs
| them.
| jseliger wrote:
| Other HN discussions of the chestnut blight:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13478910
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26441593
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30333498
| dendrite9 wrote:
| There was a crime pays and botany doesnt podcast 2 weeks ago
| with an interesting interview with someone from this project.
| http://www.esf.edu/chestnut/ The group is mentioned in the
| first comment of the first link you posted from 2017, so people
| might be interested in a more recent update.
|
| The interviewer is not for everyone but I thought it was pretty
| good discussion.
| https://www.spreaker.com/user/16676611/restoring-the-america...
| greenonions wrote:
| Big fan of crime pays but botany doesn't. I'll need to give
| that podcast a listen, thanks!
| zaroth wrote:
| If this tree had a secret to cultivating a resistant strain that
| would be very awesome.
|
| Is there a good app which lets you input your zip code, maybe
| also sun exposure and soil conditions, how many feet of width and
| height you have available, and then where it will spit out a list
| of well-suited tree specimens with some nice pictures of each?
| greenonions wrote:
| Why stop at trees? I imagine you could do an alternate reality
| app for landscaping that shows you what your landscape "could
| look like". Including flower beds, ground cover alternatives to
| grass, etc.
| lostlogin wrote:
| A walk around the block looking at what grows is another
| option. Seedling and seed from those trees tend to do well.
| mod wrote:
| I've thought about finding this, or potentially building it if
| it doesn't exist.
|
| I was thinking for gardens and fruit trees.
|
| I'm particularly interested in well-suited plants because I
| will inevitably ignore them, and I'm hoping they can thrive
| without me.
|
| I'm planting figs this fall.
| lanstin wrote:
| Fig trees are excellent. My wife has one in her gatden, snd
| after just a few years ee get so many tasty fruits from a
| pretty small tree. I live in Bay Area and pretty much it is
| just water it a bit and every so often cut back weeds.
| lostlogin wrote:
| > pretty small tree.
|
| Im in New Zealand and made the mistake of planting one.
| It's turning into a monster and they grow in every
| direction, fast.
|
| When in SF unnoticed what out Pohutakawa have done over
| your way and was fairly impressed at their growth.
| mod wrote:
| It may be a different variety.
|
| My neighbors have had theirs in 3 years, and I think they
| bought...1 year old trees? I can't recall now.
|
| Anyhow, they are about four feet tall right now, and max
| height is 10-15 feet (4.5m).
| mod wrote:
| They are supposed to do well in my region, and require
| virtually zero maintenance after they're established. No
| insect pests ruin the fruit, which is a problem with nearly
| every other fruit tree in this area (the Ozarks).
|
| My neighbors have some figs and they really taste amazing,
| a lot like a peach. I'm getting the same variety, although
| the name escapes me now.
|
| They do get emptied out by local robbers sometimes--
| raccoons and possums--but otherwise no issues.
|
| I'm really excited to get them in, after seeing the success
| next door.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| > There used to be about 4 million American chestnut trees in
| eastern U.S. forests, until chestnut blight (Cryphonectria
| parasitica) arrived in New York via infected plants and spread
| rapidly, nearly wiping out the majestic trees
|
| Fwiw this is wrong -- it used to be 4 billion.
| tylerrobinson wrote:
| Yes! This is a remarkable typo that gives a very different
| impression of the history of the tree. 4 million trees in the
| whole eastern US would make them uncommon even at their peak,
| when the truth is that they were everywhere.
| Xcelerate wrote:
| I often wonder how different the Blue Ridge mountains looked 100
| years ago, with the American Chestnut and various other trees
| that different forms of blight have since killed. It's kind of
| sad visiting Clingman's Dome or Mt. Mitchell, where you can see
| the skeletons of all the dead trees.
| brian_herman wrote:
| Life finds a way.
| mattegan wrote:
| Cool to see this here and people talking about it. I volunteered
| with the American Chestnut Foundation during my summers in high
| school. Usually spent a few weeks on the Meadowview research farm
| collecting catkins off trees, "processing" the catkins to bottle
| the pollen, bagging trees to prevent uncontrolled cross
| pollination, and pollinating trees by hand.
|
| My uncle and I also usually took hikes in NC to try and find
| remaining trees with pollen in the wild. From what I understand,
| the pollen from these few remaining living trees is used to help
| re-introduce regional biodiversity into the backcrossed
| American/Chinese hybrids.
|
| Highly recommend going and helping out on the farm if you can
| spare a week or two, or joining your state chapter if you've got
| one - or sending your kids!
| bcbrown wrote:
| This article makes it sound as if there's no large American
| Chestnuts, but that's not completely accurate. The largest trees
| in the US are a pair of trees in Thurston County, WA, that are
| 80-90' tall with ~10' circumferences:
| https://d3f9k0n15ckvhe.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/202...
| tunap wrote:
| IIRC, they do grow, blight free in the West. However, anything
| in the Appalachian range, (this species' native habitat?) dies
| from blight pretty consistently. Lost 4 billion trees in 40
| years.
|
| Edit:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chestnut#North_America
| pseudolus wrote:
| Episode of the podcast "Atlas Obscura" which provides some
| background on the destruction of the American Chestnut and
| ongoing efforts to revive the species:
|
| https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/podcast-american-chest...
| nybsop wrote:
| I used to live in a historic property in rural MI built in the
| 1800s. There was a huge chestnut tree growing on it that was at
| least 50ft tall and looked like it could've been as old as the
| house. I don't live near there anymore but I always wondered if
| it might have been an American chestnut.
| nathancahill wrote:
| Fantastic short story about the American Chestnut in the book
| Overstory by Richard Powers.
| sg47 wrote:
| Came here to say this. The Chestnut tree chapter was my
| favorite in the book.
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